Jason Collins walked down the street towards the botanical garden in the heart of the city, his guitar bumping against his back. He was an hour early for the meetup, but that would give him some time to be alone and get ready before the crowd of people arrived.

  Chloe’s little shindig on Friday night had been far more intense than he had anticipated, with people practically interrogating him over his breakup and then salivating over the idea that he was now single. That was a weird feeling. He had been told that he was attractive and charming, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to him that some women in the club would be interested, but it hadn’t occurred to him that they would be practically jumping at the prospect.

  Not that it mattered. He didn’t want to date again any time soon. After Kate… After that mess, he needed time to be alone, time to discover who he actually was. Getting into another retionship would be like setting a time bomb. Fun at first, until they made the same discoveries about him that Kate had.

  Jason gulped, trying to force the image of that final night with Kate from his mind.

  Besides, being alone was healthy. He didn’t need a partner. At least, that’s what he kept telling himself as he strolled into the park and up to the gazebo that the club had agreed to gather at for the meetup.

  He was expecting it to be empty, but as he approached he found himself pleasantly surprised. Somebody was already there, a muscur, tall man with long, nearly shoulder length jet bck hair, soft features and earrings, wearing a simple grey button down shirt and bck jeans.

  Ansel Mackenzie was here early as well.

  Jason’s heart started beating just a little bit faster. Ansel was, well, really attractive, and he’d stood up for Jason at the party st week. He’d be lying if he told himself that he would stick to his no dating resolution if Ansel showed any interest in him.

  Right now, though, the only thing that Ansel was showing interest in was the phone in his hands. He hadn’t even noticed that Jason was there.

  Time to fix that. “Hey there!” Jason sat down next to Ansel, who jumped slightly and gnced at Jason with a bnk expression.

  “You’re here early.” Ansel said, turning his attention back too the phone.

  “So are you!” Jason poked his tongue out, trying his best to be pyful as he unslung his guitar and pced it on the table.

  “Yeah, I had a bit of a drive and I don’t know the city all that well, so I left really early to be safe.” Ansel grimaced— or was that a smile? Jason couldn’t tell. “I’ve been here for nearly an hour now.”

  “Oh damn. Did you wanna go get a bite to eat or something? Otherwise we’re just sitting here for another hour.” Jason didn’t know why he was trying so hard, Ansel was almost certainly straight.

  He did need more ptonic friends though. Yes, he was doing it to make a ptonic friend. Let’s go with that.

  “I’m good, thanks.” Ansel replied, turning his attention back to his phone. He started to frown, apparently disagreeing with whatever the little device was telling him.

  “Oh, okay.” Jason put some extra disappointment into his tone, but Ansel didn’t seem to notice. He should probably go and get himself a sandwich or something, if only to avoid sitting here awkwardly for the next hour, but Jason couldn’t bring himself to leave Ansel here on his own. He had no idea why; Ansel clearly wanted the solitude.

  So they both sat there, in silence. Both paying attention to their phones, not acknowledging the other, except when Jason would give Ansel a gnce. He didn’t see it directly, but he could have sworn that Ansel was gncing at him occasionally as well. Maybe he was just being hopeful.

  Another forty minutes passed before the next person arrived.

  “Why hellloooo there!” Abigail’s blonde hair, hazel eyes and cute face came into view as she sat down next to him, setting a motorcycle helmet on the table while she fidgeted with the multitude of silver piercings in her right ear.

  “Hi, Abigail.” Jason smiled at her softly.

  “Hey yourself, cutie.” She gnced over to the other side of the table, where Ansel was now looking up from his phone and staring at them. “Oh, and Mackenzie.”

  Ansel rolled his eyes and went back to staring at his phone.

  Jason sighed. Abigail had been a friend of his and Kate’s for nearly a year now. Honestly she had been far closer to Kate than she had been to him, so it was surprising to him when she didn’t immediately take Kate’s side and ghost him like the rest of their friends had.

  Well, maybe it shouldn’t be too surprising. She wasn’t being subtle with her motivations.

  That was a shame. He liked Abigail a lot, and admittedly wasn’t uninterested in her, but he’d sworn off dating and he was going to stick to that promise.

  Even as he thought that, however, his gaze drifted back to Ansel, who’s eyes met his for just a moment before he looked away, seemingly taking great interest in a distant tree.

  “Will and Georgia are both on their way.” Abigail said, patting her helmet. “I just got here faster because motorbike.”

  “I didn’t take you for a biker.” Ansel said, still not looking at either of them.

  “Why’s that, Mackenzie? Because I’m a girl?” Abigail’s tone was accusatory, clearly she still had a bone to pick with him after Friday night.

  “That’s not-” Ansel sighed and rolled his eyes. “Whatever.” He returned his attention to his phone.

  It took another ten minutes before more people began to filter in, starting with Ben and Ian, who both arrived together.

  “Hey hey hey!” Ben beamed at the group as he pced a picnic basket on the table. “I baked some cookies!”

  “Oh thank the gods.” Jason said, reaching over to extract a cookie from the basket. His hand bumped into Ansel’s, who apparently had the same idea. Ansel withdrew his hand as if Jason’s had bit it, light red tinting his face ever so slightly.

  Jason tried his best not to read into that, lest he get his hopes up. Ansel was, almost certainly, straight. Maybe that wouldn’t be a problem in a year, but right now it still was.

  Twenty minutes and several more cookies ter, and everyone had arrived. The chatter to really begin to heat up, with Ben and Ian jabbering about their Minecraft build to anyone who would listen.

  Chloe had shown up shortly after William and Georgia, the small blonde immediately diverting her attention to Ansel. Jason felt an ugly pit of jealousy forming in his tummy at the sight of the two chatting. That was ridiculous. Was was he getting jealous over a guy that wasn’t even interested in him?

  It was probably because, for the first time since he realised, he could potentially act on his attraction to men. He’d known since his early teenage years that he was bisexual— thank you, internet, for helping with that— but he had been moved around so much as a child that it was difficult just making friends, let alone more than that. By the time that stopped, he had fallen into a retionship with Kate. Which meant that he wouldn’t be able to ever explore that part of him. Until now.

  Well, that didn’t matter. There were plenty of hot guys out there. He didn’t need to focus so much on this particur one.

  But still, as he watched Ansel ugh at something Chloe was telling him, he felt it. That draw.

  “Hey, is this yours?” Abigail was pointing towards his guitar. “I knew you pyed, but I’ve never actually heard you.”

  “Oh, yeah, not sure why I brought it with me…”

  Abigail picked up the guitar and fwlessly pyed the opening of the theme from Halo. “This is a nice instrument.” She said, still plucking at it.

  Jason looked at her with surprise. “I didn’t know you pyed?”

  “Well, I’m mainly a drummer, but I know the basics.” She grinned at him, before handing the guitar over. “Go on then, py me a song.”

  A few people in the group backed her up, encouraging him to py as well.

  Jason sighed. Okay, fine. He grabbed the guitar and started pying the first thing that came to his mind, a song that most guitar students learned in their first year.

  And then he started to sing the lyrics.

  “I close my eyes…

  …Only for a moment, and the moment’s gone”

  He had the groups attention now. Including Ansel’s, who was looking at him with an expression that Jason couldn’t interpret. Wait, no, it was annoyance. Fuck.

  “All my dreams,

  pass before my eyes, a curiosity.”

  He sang and pyed the rest of Dust in the Wind, the rest of the group entranced in his performance. Honestly, he wasn’t a big fan of being the centre of attention, but it was nice to be recognised for the one thing he was good at.

  At the end, he pced his guitar on back on the table. “Happy now?” He asked Abigail quietly, who was now staring at him.

  “You have a really nice voice.” She sounded more than a little flustered. A lot of the group that was with them started to agree.

  Jason couldn’t agree with her. His voice— which normally sounded pretty androgynous, a trait that Jason loved— still felt hoarse after the breakup two weeks ago. His throat, hidden under the grey turtleneck sweater he had decided to wear today for completely unreted reasons, was still sore as well.

  But still, people seemed to like it regardless.

  “Thank you!” Jason forced a soft smile, which made Abigail’s face flush a deep scarlet.

  “Oh uh, you’re-” She averted her eyes, only for them to immediately lock on to something behind him. “Oh shit.”

  Jason swivelled to look behind him, his eyes scanning the distance until they fell on the person that Abigail had spotted.

  Oh, shit.

  In the distance, making her way towards them, was a tall brunette with a bitchy face. Jason’s ex, Kate.

  Then, something moved in front of him, blocking his view. Abigail was standing there, like a guard dog.

  “I’ll tell her to leave.” She said, her face determined. That was oddly protective of her, especially considering how close she was to Kate.

  Then, as if on cue, Chloe and Ansel stood up.

  “We’re both gonna go get a bite to eat together, did anybody want anything?” Chloe asked, gesturing in the general direction of the nearest park exit The opposite direction from where Kate was now approaching.

  “Actually, I’m starving!” Jason said, having decided that he was suddenly very hungry. “Mind if I tag along?”

  “Actually I would prefer-” Ansel started, but Abigail had caught on, and shot Chloe a look.

  “Yeah, that sounds good.” Chloe said, picking up on whatever the other blonde had silently communicated to her, their shared brand of hair dye apparently giving them both telepathy. “Come along then, let’s get going!”

  Jason barely had time to smile at Abigail, who winked in return, before the three took off in the direction of the city.

  ***

  “Thanks for letting me hang with you guys.” Jason said, chewing on a toasted sandwich as they sat down in the small cafe just outside of the gardens.

  “It’s fine!” Chloe beamed at him, sipping her own… It looked like some kind of juice? Except it was green. “I saw Kate coming and we had to get you out of there. Hopefully Abbi will give her what-for and then you can go back.”

  Jason nodded, focusing on his sandwich. “Hopefully.”

  Ansel didn’t say anything.

  “I love your dress, by the way!” He told Chloe enthusiastically.

  “Yeah, it’s amazing!” She said, jumping up from her seat and twirling. The dress was a short mini, dark blue with various game controllers on it. It was really pretty, and Jason couldn’t help but wondering how it would look on him.

  “It looks really nice.” Ansel said, his eyes dancing all over her body.

  Jason wished his eyes would do that for his body.

  “I’m gd you agree. I picked this out with you in mind.” Chloe smiled at Ansel again.

  “O-oh!” Ansel said, his eyes widening. Poor boy did not know how to handle this sort of attention, did he? Good.

  “Your hair and makeup are on point as well!” Jason said. It was true, her hair looked gorgeous.

  Chloe downright giggled and batted her eyeshes at Jason, which earned him a brief scowl from Ansel. Crap, dial it back a bit.

  “Well, that was delicious.” Ansel said, as the three finished their sandwiches and drinks. “Chloe and I were gonna check out some shops before heading back, but I’m sure that Kate has left by now, so you should be fine to return to the group on your own, right?”

  Jason’s heart clenched. He didn’t really want to risk going back there. He gnced over at Chloe, who seemed to pick up on the silent message he was trying to convey.

  “You can stay with us while we shop.” She smiled at him.

  Ansel didn’t look happy about it, not at all.

  ***

  He looked even less happy as the trio walked through a rge and cramped secondhand bookstore, probably because Jason and Chloe had the exact same tastes in fantasy books.

  “Look Jason, they have Pern here!” Chloe excimed, carefully extracting an ancient copy of The White Dragon from the overfilled bookshelf.

  “Fuck yeah, I love that series! Although the Thread gave me nightmares as a kid.”

  “Oh it absolutely did to me as well.” Chloe ughed, flipping through the pages.

  Jason looked behind him and peeked around a corner, his eyes searching for wherever Ansel had run off to. This pce was an absolute byrinth of books, with bookshelves packed in to create haphazard hallways and rooms. In fact if it wasn’t a store then people would assume it was a hoarder’s house.

  Ansel was still sitting on a stool, amid a pile of books, thumbing through one of them. Exactly where he had set up when Jason and Chloe first started scanning the Fantasy section, commenting on every book they had read— Which, combined, was most of them.

  His rge frame looked strange among the stacks of literature, although not in an unpleasant way. Actually, it somehow made him even more attractive. Brains and brawn was apparently a combination that Jason liked a lot.

  “Ansel, what sorts of books do you like?” Jason said, dancing over. He pyfully bent down, catching a gnce at the book Ansel had been reading. Something called ‘Satan Was a Lesbian’.

  Jason didn’t have time to comprehend… Whatever that was, though, as Ansel went bright red and smmed the book shut, pcing it back on the shelf behind him.

  “I read all sorts of things.” He muttered, avoiding eye contact.

  “Clearly!” Jason giggled.

  “It’s a cssic piece of queer history.” Ansel mumbled, pulling another book from the shelf seemingly at random, one that had a photo of two men on the cover, their lips locked. Maybe Ansel wasn’t straight after all?

  “Ah, I see you like your queer romances.”

  “I do, actually!” Ansel said, far too defensively. “Fucking love me some…” He flipped the book open to a random page. A shocked and disgusted look on his face appeared for a moment, before being repced with curiosity. “What the fuck is a Prince Albert?”

  “I can show you, if you want.” Jason said, wiggling his eyebrows. He was pushing his luck here, but he had to break the ice somehow.

  Ansel either didn’t notice, or chose to ignore him.

  ***

  The rest of the morning and early afternoon was much of the same. Jason and Chloe would find themselves lost in conversation over a book, or piece of music, or some other shared interest, while Ansel would float behind them, occasionally interjecting with a thought of his own. Jason wanted to get the guy out of his shell and talking so badly. There was something there, he could feel it, but he didn’t want to push or pry.

  At the very least, he did occasionally try to join them in the conversation. At one point, while searching thorough CDs at a local music store, he even tried to ask Jason what his favourite Kansas song was.

  Of course, it was Carry On My Wayward Son, which somehow unched Jason and Chloe into a deep discussion about Supernatural. Ansel, who had apparently never watched the show, simply stood back and shuffled through various Florence and the Machine albums and singles as they talked.

  ***

  It was well past noon by the time the trio returned to the gathering.

  “Hey there!” Abigail waved them over far too excitedly. “Kates gone.” She whispered to Jason as he approached, winking at him once again.

  He unclenched just a little, mouthing a ‘thank you’ to her in the process.

  “Well, it’s been lovely, both of you.” Chloe smiled Jason and Ansel. “I do have work ter tonight though, so I should get home and shower.”

  She turned to Ansel. “I’m sorry today didn’t go as pnned. Did you want to get dinner sometime?”

  Ansel stared down at her, with a gre that made Jason feel a little uneasy. “Actually,” He said, his voice monotone and careful. “I don’t think this is going to work. Today has been nice, but I think we should just stay friends. Sorry”

  Chloe looked immediately crestfallen. “Oh, okay.” She said, her face scrunching up. It was clear that she was fighting back tears,

  She gave Jason a sad smile. “I better go, see you all ter.” She said, power walking away from the group.

  “What the fuck, Mackenzie?” Abigail excimed throwing her hands up in frustration and gring at him, before immediately running after Chloe.

  Ansel ignored the strange gnces he was getting and went over to an empty patch of grass near the gazebo, sitting down on it and staring off into the distance.

  Jason sighed, and sat down next to him. Ansel still didn’t acknowledge his presence.

  “Thanks for putting up with me today. I’m sorry things didn’t work out with-”

  “What the FUCK is your problem?!?” Ansel shouted, meeting his eyes for the first time that day.

  He had a look of absolute rage on his face. Jason felt his heart rate skyrocket, adrenalin surging throughout him. He scrambled back a little as Ansel jumped to his feet.

  “You’ve been making me the third wheel all day, constantly flirting with the girl I was trying to date!” Ansel practically spat the words out as he loomed over Jason. “What FUCKING GAME ARE YOU PLAYING AT?!”

  “I-I’m sorry!” Jason gasped, cowering beneath him. He looked so tall from down here, like he could crush Jason without a thought. “I w-was just trying to hang out with y-you!”

  “Hang out with ME?!?” Ansel screamed down at him. “You’ve barely said three FUCKING words to me all day! You spent the entire time chatting with Chloe!”

  “I thought- Fuck, I’m sorry!” Jason could barely whimper as he began to shake. He felt tears start to flow down his cheeks. “I was just trying to be your friend.”

  “ANSEL!” William ran over, standing between them both. “Back the fuck off!”

  Ansel took a step back, his rage seemingly breaking as he looked down at Jason, who was now shaking and sobbing uncontrolbly. His wrathful expression suddenly became one of concern. “Oh, I-”

  “Leave! Now!”

  Ansel didn’t protest at all, he simply muttered a “Sorry.” and walked away.

  Jason felt himself curl up into a ball. Fuck, he’d fucked it up. He was so useless that he hadn’t even noticed how uncomfortable Ansel had been all day. He’d stepped all over him without realising, he was such a piece of shi-

  Small, petite hands wrapped around him. “Jason” Abigail’s voice. “It’s okay, he’s gone.”

  He couldn’t form any words. He could only cry as he reached out and embraced Abigail, holding her as if she was a dder that he was at the top of.